Is your portfolio politically slanted?

Do you know the political slant of your portfolio? Every election cycle, US businesses pour hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns, parties, and politically affiliated groups. Some of that money is reported, some isn't. Now a movement to get corporations to disclose voluntarily their political contributions is gaining ground. Recently, the Monitor's Laurent Belsie interviewed Bruce Freed, executive director of The Center for Political Accountability, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group based in Washington. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:Campaign spending for all offices could top $5 billion this year. How much of that comes from corporations?

Freed: I think a significant amount is coming from businesses. It's difficult, though, to come up with a precise figure because of the absence of disclosure.

It seems like a tangled web.

Money that's given through company political action committees is easy to track because that's reported to the Federal Election Commission. Money that would be given at the state level, that could include corporate money, that can be tracked easily if a state has good disclosure requirements. The problem is that disclosure at the state level is spotty. And when companies give corporate funds – that would be soft money given to 527s and those types of groups – that's reported only by the recipient, not by the contributor. But then you have companies giving a great deal of money through trade associations and through other tax-exempt organizations. Those would be 501(c)(4)s. There's no disclosure of that.